Calling it a mercenary heart is just a coping mechanism. You spent your entire life giving god everything you have, even risking your life for his glory and then he kills your wife and child in a car accident. Even after this, you'll still return like a battered wife?

Jack Carter - Calling it a mercenary heart is just a coping mechanism. You spent your entire life giving god everything you have, even risking your life for his glory and then he kills your wife and child in a car accident. Even after this, you'll still return like a battered wife?

LOL. Did you come all the way to the HG to troll Jack? Why change the story? I thought we were talking about Bram Stoker's Dracula, in which his lover freely chooses to end her life even though she simultaneously believes it would separate her from her love forever?

Why would I need a coping mechanism for a movie narrative? In the movie the Count likes God for giving him victory in battle and personal glory and then curses God when something doesn't go his way. That is supposed to be the point of the character. He inflicts suffering on others because he is suffering.

As far as your other scenario, you are switching your definition of God around as you see fit. In one respect God is the being who created everything and sustains all life including your wife and child. In the next scenario he is just a part of the universe and actually kills your wife and child as if they had an existence on their own apart from him?

Saying that you will love someone so long as they give you certain things and satisfy certain conditions is a mercenary heart. We all have it to one degree or another, but it makes no sense to curse the God who gives you the power and freedom to curse him unless you believed that something was your own in the first place. That is the whole point of Dracula's ego. God is serving his ends, not the other way around.

LOL. Did you come all the way to the HG to troll Jack? Why change the story?

LMFAO!

You thought I was asking you if you could ever reach a point in your life where you'd become Dracula after your girl tossed herself off of a castle?

Why would I need a coping mechanism for a movie narrative?

Wow, you're really stupid.

As far as your other scenario

The scenario is irrelevant. The question is if you could reach the point of "turning your back" on God. The whole question went right over your head and any scenario that is posed to you that I ask to satisfy the question does nothing but confuse you.

In one respect God is the being who created everything and sustains all life including your wife and child. In the next scenario he is just a part of the universe and actually kills your wife and child as if they had an existence on their own apart from him?

No.

Saying that you will love someone so long as they give you certain things and satisfy certain conditions is a mercenary heart.

By calling it a "mercenary heart", you remove the realism of human emotion in relationships in favor of an idealized, unrealistic relationship. In reality, you would at the very least condemn a loved one if they killed your wife and child. Is that a "mercenary heart"? No. It's a healthy, emotional response to someone taking someone away from you that you cherished.

And as you stated, you could not reach the point of turning against God because you will always justify what he has done as good, divine or acceptable.

The question I asked has an obvious answer because everyone already knows that religious people are highly guided by faith. So you're one of 99.9999% of Christians who would never reach the point of "turning on God".

I'm looking for that one Christian who has a point where they feel they could "turn against God".

We all have it to one degree or another, but it makes no sense to curse the God who gives you the power and freedom to curse him unless you believed that something was your own in the first place.

And that is the crux of it all for you and 99.99999 of religious folk. This is not a revelation to anyone and is the expected answer for probably every Christian (or any other religion) here.

That is the whole point of Dracula's ego. God is serving his ends, not the other way around.

Well, this type of thinking poses a problem, because it's too simplistic. The whole human element is removed when it's "all or nothing".

Just because he expected God to protect his beloved wife while he was out defending God's church with his own flesh and blood doesn't mean his entire relationship with god was self-serving.

The reality is that all relationships with god are 100% self-serving. You are not an empty vessel implementing god's will. You are an ego who is using the structure of religion and the relationship with God to create stability.

Here's a hypothetical for you:

God gives you a choice. He says "Ridgeback, you have been a good servant of my will. You have served my ends well. You are saved and have the right to enter Heaven. But, my will is to test your faith for eternity. You can choose to enter your rightful place in Heaven, or you can choose to accept my will to have you burn in hell for eternity. But be warned: this is not a test like I did to Abraham. If you choose my will, you will burn for eternity. If you chose what you earned through accepting Christ as your savior, you will enter Heaven and this moment will be washed away as if it never happened."

Do you choose what you earned, or do you choose God's final will for you?

Reply Post

“This is the official website of the Mixed Martial Arts llc. Commercial
reproduction, distribution or transmission of any part or parts of this website
or any information contained therein by any means whatsoever without the prior
written permission is not permitted.”